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| Opening Ceremony |
The London Olympics have commenced with a wonderful opening
ceremony. It opened with the ringing of the largest harmonically tuned bell in
the world, produced by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, measuring two meters
(yards) tall by three meters wide and weighing 23 metric tons (25.3 tons)
From the green hills and pleasant countryside smoke stacks
are rose up out of the ground as Britain remembered the industrial
revolution. Olympic rings, glowing in red in the middle of the stadium
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| The Queen & James Bond |
Daniel Craig, playing James Bond, entered Buckingham Palace.
"Good evening Mr Bond," Her Royal Majesty says as she turns from
writing at her desk. They then boarded the chopper so that they could parachute
into the Olympic Stadium.
Mike Oldfield of Tubular bells fame played Chariots of Fire
with Mr Bean being at his best.
Paul Macartney of Beatles fame closed the opening ceremony
by leading the sing-along of Hey Jude.
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| Mr Bean |
Here are some of the many Olympic Opening Ceremony statistics:
- There were 15,000 square meters of staging - equivalent to
12 Olympic-sized swimming pools
- 12,956 props were used, over 100 times more than a West End musical
- A million watt PA system using double the amount of
speakers as on the main stage at the Glastonbury
music festival
- 10,000 adult volunteer performers
- Real farmyard animals featured included 12 horses, 3 cows,
2 goats, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, 9 geese, 70 sheep, and 3 sheep dogs.
- Each of the four Great Britain nations were represented by
their national flower - the rose of England, the thistle of Scotland, the
daffodil of Wales and flax from Northern Ireland.
Other Olympic statistics include:
- London
becomes the first city to host the Olympics three times, following on from 1908
and 1948.
- Andrew Hoy is the only Australian to be in 7 Olympics
- the Christian hymn Abide With Me has been sung at every FA Cup since 1927.
- Five countries – Greece,
Great Britain, France, Switzerland
and Australia
– have been represented at all Summer Olympic Games
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| Australia Entering Stadium |
- The only country to have won at least one gold medal at
every Summer Olympic Games is Great
Britain, ranging from one gold in 1904, 1952
and 1996 to fifty-six golds in 1908
- the USA
has won the most Gold Medals – 1032
- the most medals wins in athletics is 18 by Larysa Latynina
from the URS
- the next Summer Olympics will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016
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